


we fall for each other at the wrong time

by acrossthesky_instars



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bellarke, Childhood Friends, F/M, Flashbacks, Friends to Lovers, Mixed POV, Roommates, and a bit of a mess, and then fluff, mostly just angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-08 02:09:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5479379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acrossthesky_instars/pseuds/acrossthesky_instars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their first kiss was chaste, awkward, tense and wonderful.<br/>His lips were cloud soft (that hadn’t changed), electricity sparked along their brushing skin (that hadn’t changed) and he held her gently, like she was something delicate, cherished, precious.<br/>(That had changed, for the most part.)<br/>(She didn’t mind).<br/>It would become a kind of irony for Clarke, that only when the bottle was empty would he pull her closer. </p><p>OR<br/>bellamy and clarke are best friends who can't seem to stop sleeping together, and clarke's not handling it well</p><p>based on (and title from) sober by selena gomez</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**now**

As soon as Clarke stumbles through their front door and sees the bottle of rum in pride of (very expectant) place on their kitchen table, her heart sinks down into her stomach.

Bellamy wiggles his eyebrows at her, and- pulsing- it drops even lower.

(Her body is even more of a traitor than her heart at this point.)

He’s twiddling the test tube shot glasses Jasper left behind at their last party between his long fingers, and it’s both a curse and a blessing that, after all this time, she can read him so well.

(His smirk right now might as well be a billboard flashing neon pink hearts at her.)

(Not hearts, she reminds herself. _Definitely_ not hearts.)

She lets her bag slip the floor, tired and sloppy.

‘Netflix or Hawkins?’ she asks evenly, because The Darkness have always serenaded their drinking, and she knows that Bellamy recognises the last sentry of her defence.

(It’s still too late.)

In lieu of an answer- it’s easy to ignore his silence when she’s been having an entire conversation with his cheekbones- he tugs his phone from his pocket, and The Darkness start crooning from the wireless speaker system behind her.

(She jumps a little, but she’s not really surprised.)

There’s no real point in changing, even though she’s still in her scrubs after her shift, and Bellamy’s suit is even more rumpled than her. She’s wondering how someone can manage to crumple a _tie_ when his hands are there, following her eyes, and loosening the knot, just a little, just a suggestion.

Clarke swallows.

(It’s more than a suggestion, and they both know it.)

‘Long shift?’ He asks, and Clarke wants to scream. It was the _longest_ shift, but this is best-friend Bellamy and that is _not_ the Bellamy that they both know is in the room with her right now.

(Why did she ever think she could handle this?)

(She can.)

(She can’t).

‘Yep,’ she pops the _p_ as she sits down next to him, her knee a whisper against his. There’re two armchairs other than the sofa he’s draped across (they’re always the hosts for movie night Mondays) but if he’s past any qualms about this then so is she.

She passes him the bottle, and there’s a moment when he’s pouring her a shot when she wishes for Roommate Bellamy, the one who knows her inside out in a very different way, wishes that he’d answered for Netflix, and poured her a hot chocolate instead.

But this is the Bellamy she has, and this is the Clarke she’ll be. They’ve been friends for 12 years, and she’s been trying to figure out how to refuse him for almost as long.

They knock back the first, second, third shot in unison, and by the fourth, Clarke’s trying to surreptitiously check how stubbly her legs are.

Instead, she keels off the sofa. Bellamy laughs, and they’re them again, just with slightly too bright eyes.

He helps her back up and she slumps ungainly against the sofa arm, blowing blonde hair off her face in gusty breaths.

‘What’s the occasion, then, Blake?’ She asks when they pause, and he grins.

‘Octavia got accepted,’ he beams, like the proud father that he basically is- and hers is basically its matching counterpart. Bellamy had pretty much raised Octavia since before Clarke had met them both (who knew two twelve year olds could argue themselves into being best friends?), and had literally raised her since they’d turned eighteen and his mum had died. Any eighteen year old that loved their little sister enough to raise her through puberty deserved a proud parent moment when she got into university, even if it’d taken her an extra year of travelling, stressing out her brother, and ‘finding herself’ in tall, tattooed strangers to get there.

‘That’s amazing, Bell!’ she exclaims, and then promptly hits him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’

He rubs the offending spot on his arm, doing what Clarke calls his I’m-not-pouting-pout. ‘She only called about half an hour ago! And I bet if you actually checked your phone, you’d see she tried you too.’

He’s right (that always grates). She’s got two missed calls from Octavia, an emoji-ridden text that she quickly replies to, and a message from the man next to her: ‘Celebrations. Come home,’ and then one lone cocktail emoji.

(Like brother, like sister.)

‘Flip, sip or strip?’ He cocks his eyebrow at her, and she swallows.

(This is how it always starts.)

(For a long chunk of their teenage years, it’d been Two Truths and a Lie, but that became null and void when you knew that much about each other.)

Bellamy fishes a coin from his pocket and passes it to her, swigging from the bottle. ‘Ladies first.’

She tosses it high in the air- they both watch it spiral- and catches it with a slap on her arm. ‘Heads,’ she announces, because she always does and she knows it makes Bellamy flush.

(He does.)

But it’s tails, and she flips again, getting it right this time. She hands over the coin as he passes over the rum for her to sip.

He gets it wrong three times (can someone fix a coin toss?) and yanks off a sock with a smirk that makes her want to slap him.

(She wants to slap herself more, but only because she is _such_ a sucker.)

She points at his feet imperiously. ‘Both feet, Blake. You know the drill.’

The look he gives her is dark, a blackness of dilated pupil, but he takes off the other sock as well, placing them carefully on the sofa next to him because he’s a neat freak like that.

‘Slow and steady wins the race, Clarke,’ he taunts, but it’s been twelve years of _slow and steady_ and she’s starting to think she’s facing in the wrong direction.

He wiggles his toes and they’re hairy and _feet_ , but she likes when he’s like this- slumped in his suit but barefoot and relaxed, tired but flushed and focused on her.

(She especially likes how this Bellamy looks at her, his eyes saying everything that he’s supposed to.)

She wants to swallow but all she can do is stare at the coin in Bellamy’s proffered palm.

Ten more tosses, and they’re as shirtless as each other, except his tie still dangles between his abs, and she’s wishing she’d worn a fancier bra.

(Not that he seems to mind.)

‘You look like a stripper,’ she announces, and revels in the way he watches her lick the rum from her lips.

He quirks a brow. ‘Isn’t that kind of the point?’

(She can’t stop her finger from reaching for him, since that’s all her whole body yearns for.)

Her nail scratches lightly over his eyebrow, his lashes fluttering against her palm the only thing nervous about him. She traces lightly down his face, forcing those eyes to close and relieve her, and presses just hard enough that she leaves a tiny white line behind her finger to dot-to-dot his freckles.

(He inhales a little sharper every time she changes direction.)

When she replaces her finger with her lips, she resents that- this time- it’s her that falls into him first.

(Her mind is screaming, her heart tearing itself in two different directions, and it’s all she can do to stay still.)

(Her lips are a ghost on his.)

His eyes flash open with his lips, and burn just as hot, and she groans because she hates it and she loves it and, _god_ , it’s tearing her apart, but they’re fused together now and she knows from a depressingly glorious amount of experience that neither of them are strong enough to pull apart with alcohol and each other’s closeness fizzing in their veins.

‘Fuck,’ he groans against her, and she thinks that maybe, just maybe, he’s as thoroughly, thoroughly wrecked as her, ‘why is it always _so_ good?’

 

**then**

(it has always been pretty good.)

There had still been an alarming amount of stripping though, especially when it came to the glittery parties Bellamy had dragged fifteen-year-old Clarke to.

He’d had a thing for Echo, a girl in the year above (who’d bloomed a little earlier than Clarke, and apparently knew what the _womanly mysteries_ that the girls in the toilets at school whispered about were), and although he was still her lean, gangly best friend, suddenly he was tall enough for Echo to notice him back.

(Even at fifteen, she hated it.)

(And even at fifteen, she couldn’t say no.)

Raven had taken one look at her face when Bellamy had strutted off (his smirk was a newer thing back then) and pressed a strawberry pink drink into her hand, grunting.

‘He’s a peacock,’ she’d promised, ‘and boys are stupid.’

Clarke had sighed and rested her head against her friend. ‘I think I’m the stupid one.’

(She still thought this.)

‘Nah,’ Raven shook her head, tapping the bottom of Clarke’s bottle until she drank. ‘He’ll catch up to you. Besides, you should want him to get the stupid out of his system first.’ She nodded at this, pleased. ‘He needs to realise what he’s got.’

Clarke had thought about denying that Bellamy had her, but even then it seemed futile.

(He’d always had her.)

Raven had never been much for endless moping, and gave her about ten minutes and two more drinks before she’d dragged her downstairs.

Of all things, their fifteen year old friends were in their Spin the Bottle phase, and Clarke had had just enough strawberry-somethings to settle herself down in their cross-legged circle.

(She did _not_ sit next to Bellamy, and refused to look at Echo.)

She watched Raven crawl to meet a blushing Jasper in the middle of the circle, full of a confidence in her new body that Clarke envied.

They swapped places while Raven took her turn spinning, and Jasper nudged Clarke with a sloppy smile, cheeks flushed.

‘Hey, lover boy,’ she teased, laughing as he twirled his goggles round his finger and tossed his hair back, eyelashes fluttering.

‘Shh,’ he pushed a finger to her lips, and she wrinkled her nose at her smudged lipgloss. ‘I’m listening to who’s going to be struck by the Jasper love-bug next.’

She bit her lip to catch her smile, and then swallowed it whole watching Bellamy ease forward to kiss Harper, the girl who’d been sat quietly on Clarke’s other side and had just blushed her way through Raven’s quick kiss. She stared at the back of Harper’s head, at the long, tanned fingers cradling it, at Bellamy’s curls peeking out to halo her.

(She deliberately did not think about what she couldn’t see.)

Bellamy pulled away, eyes bright with teenage pride and the sheen of alcohol that Clarke would become very familiar with, and sprawled next to her.

He slung an arm around her neck and pulled her against his hot body.

‘Hey, Princess,’ he slurred, and winked. He leant close, his breath stirring blonde across her face. ‘Cross those fingers.’

He fell forward and twirled the empty bottle.

(She had the distinct sense of them both watching it intently, side by side and hoping for exactly the opposite thing.)

The bottle slowed, and the music playing switched over, _I Believe in a Thing Called Love_ blasting from the speakers. Clarke’s heart stopped, and so did the bottle.

(Her eyes were stuck to the ceiling, _just listen to the rhythm of my heart_.)

Jasper inhaled sharply, Bellamy was frozen beside her and her ears were full of Raven’s soft ‘fuck’.

Her gaze swooped down, first on Echo, pretty even in a fierce frown, then on the bottle’s neck piercing her right in the chest, and finally, _finally_ , on Bellamy’s freckles blurring into his blush.

(She’d skipped right over the black holes of his eyes, gravitational pull and all.)

Despite The Darkness blaring out, the room felt very, very silent.

Their first kiss (Clarke’s first proper one altogether) was chaste, awkward, tense and wonderful.

His lips were cloud soft (that hadn’t changed), electricity sparked along their brushing skin (that hadn’t changed) and he held her gently, like she was something delicate, cherished, precious.

( _That_ had changed, for the most part.)

(She didn’t mind).

It would become a kind of irony for Clarke, that only when the bottle was empty would he pull her closer.

 

**now**

The mornings are the worst.

It isn’t the hangover- although they are steadily getting worse- or the awkwardness, because they tended to breeze straight through that.

It’s the ‘after’ part. It’s the distance, the knowing that she’d made the same mistake, carelessly stomped on her own heart, and still all she can feel is sadness that she has to wait for the next bottle of rum or vodka or sherry (that’d been one interesting Christmas party) to feel his heartbeat so close again.

It’s the staring across the miles of bedsheets to Bellamy’s tanned skin and peaceful expression and knowing, _yet again_ , that they might as well be continents apart.

As soon as his eyes would open even the way he’d look at her would be different (and way too familiar).

She slips out of his bed, trailing her battered heart behind her, and tucks herself into her dressing gown.

Pancakes were their white flag, and she had no choice but to wave.

He stumbles in when the smell spreads through the apartment, adorably rumbled and shirtless.

(Heartless, too.)

(How could he _do_ this to her?)

She slides a mug of coffee towards him in lieu of a peace offering ( _‘it’s okay’_ ) and he pecks her lightly on her cheek, ( _‘we’re still okay_ ’).

(Same lips, same kiss, but not the same touch.)

 

 

**later**

‘ _Fuck_ ,’ Raven curses, and it’s as much a part of her and Bellamy’s stupid cycle of self-destruction as the alcohol. ‘Clarke, no. This has got to stop.’

Clarke takes a large spoonful of her ice-cream, and speaks around it mildly. ‘That’s what you always say.’

Her friend scoffs, letting her spoon flick melted sauce all over the table between them. ‘That’s because I’m always _right_. You need to realise that.’

Clarke sighs, and even the ice-cream can’t slide past the regret blocking her throat. ‘Nothing’s changed, Rae. There’s no way to break this cycle without breaking everything.’

‘Clarke,’ Raven’s gaze is heavy, honest, but her voice is gentle. ‘You need to tell him.’

‘Tell him what?’ She hedges, and is grateful that Raven only gives her a look.

(Bellamy is her weak spot, and she can only take so much prodding.)

Sotto voce or not, it’s still a bombshell: ‘That you love him.’

‘He already knows that,’ this time Clarke can’t even make eye contact, but she can feel the straining of Raven’s patience.

‘Clarke, enough.’ Raven’s trying to be firm, and Clarke can only trace circles, dots, freckles, onto the tabletop. ‘You can’t let him do this to you. You can’t do this to yourself.’

‘That’s what makes it worse,’ she replies, and she’s pitiful, vaguely appalled with herself.  

‘If it helps,’ Raven says, and Clarke’s skin prickles with the unusual tentative tone to her voice. ‘I’m fairly sure he feels the same.’

(It’s almost funny, how her beaten heart still falls for it, every time.)

(The disappointment is always painful.)

‘I’ve never seen two people more _together_ ,’ she offers, and she sounds a little disgusted. ‘I hate that you even make me think this, but it’s like you’re opposites and exactly the same, all at once.’

(Clarke hates that she knows exactly what she means.)

(Bellamy’s the part of her that she wasn’t born with.)

‘That doesn’t mean we should _be_ together,’ Clarke says flatly, and Raven’s second of hesitation is all the noise her ears can take.

Raven notices. (Of course she does.)

‘You deserve to be happy, Clarke, and this isn’t giving you that. Either the drinking needs to stop- and do either of you want to cut out wine?- or the sexing does.’

Clarke’s stomach rolls, the same way it always does when she glimpses the blank page future without Bellamy’s heartbeat thundering against hers.

(Does a blank page have to be a bad thing?)

(It feels like it.)

(It feels like the cold hammer of a prison sentence, if she’s being dramatic.)

‘Or,’ Raven urges. ‘You tell him.’

But because of all the times she’s tucked her feet under his thighs to warm them, all the times he’s pretended to get her favourite chocolates wrong for her birthday so he can eat them (but always gets them right when he knows she needs them), because of all the times she’s given in to his weird thing about guns and had crazy water fights all through their flat, and then taken him to the hospital when he’d cut open his chin open trying to make a slip’n’slide out of their hallway, because of the way he’ll argue Greys Anatomy with her if she watches his weird historical documentaries with him, because of how tightly he’d held her hand throughout both of their graduations, of how he’d said her name down the phone- broken and desperate and _needing her_ \- when Octavia had gotten hurt trying to do parkour when she was fifteen- because of how he’d covered her in his hoodie the moment she’d found out about her dad, and because of how he’d slept wrapped around her so his smell and his warmth and his _family_ -ness never left her when it felt like everything else had- because of all of _Bellamy_ , of their _them_ -ness, she can’t.

(How could someone who is everything to her not be enough?)

Just because he doesn’t _love_ her when he’s sober, doesn’t mean he doesn’t love her.

(It’s an odd feeling, to realise exactly what Bellamy is to her.)

(Because she _can_ live without him. (She just doesn’t want to.))

‘Yeah,’ Raven sighs, and squeezes her hand, affectionate just when Clarke needs her to be. ‘I know.’

 

**then**

Raven had caught them at it long ago, and had been sceptical from the start.

It was just after the Finn fiasco, and their friendship was at both its weakest and its strongest, but Clarke’s self-esteem had seen better days.

Some stupid fresher at their new university had made a comment about Clarke having it all except the actual execution, blaming her apparent inability to keep a man on her inept bedroom skills.

(Clarke knew that really it had more to do with Bellamy’s shadow in every step she took towards any romantic interest than anything else.)

(Bellamy had still taken it upon himself to punch the guy into next week.)

Either way, Bellamy had been trying to drink her out of her slump when this came to light, and all of sudden Clarke’s hand was on his thigh, just too high to be nothing, and her words were a tangle of ‘teach me’ and ‘practice’ and other utterly impractical suggestions that Bellamy had apparently (and obviously) been unable to resist.

(He hadn’t had to teach her anything.)

Raven had found them when she’d come to try to get her bomber jacket from Clarke’s car and found them entangled in the backseat, the windows a cliché of steam.

It’d been the first time they’d progressed beyond drunken kisses in the dark corners of high school parties, pretending those stolen moments of clutching hands and drinking each other in didn’t exist in time and space and their friendship.

Clarke hadn’t understood how she’d managed to be satisfied without the long, hot press of his body into hers, even in the cramped confines of her car, without his mouth whispering sweet nothings into the soft skin under her ear, just quiet enough for her to hope he hadn’t meant for her to hear. His teeth would nip at her neck everytime he would call her _so fucking beautiful_ , almost angry, and it didn’t matter that they were drunk and her legs were cramping and the seatbelt was digging into her hip because he was like lightening.

Her moans had started as a litany of ‘show me _how_ ’s and ‘like this?’s and had melted into ‘yes’s and ‘right there’s and his name, endless and perfect and the only word that could and would ever feel big enough for everything she wanted to say, for all her gratitude to him for being there, always.

(He held her tight enough for her broken pieces to almost stick back together).

His hands were in a place that was somehow better than anywhere else he’d ever been and she’d left the memory of Finn in the dust they’d lifted off from long ago when Raven had stuck her hand through the gap in the window, (the other over her eyes), and slammed down on the horn loud enough for Clarke to bite both of their lips and Bellamy to launch into the roof.

She’d driven both of them home, and when she’d tucked Clarke in, she’d whispered to her to be careful, to protect herself and to protect Bellamy.

And Clarke had promised it was the _last time_ , the _only time_ and yet, when Raven had left and Clarke was staring up at the fading stars Bellamy had helped her stick to her ceiling- in painstakingly accurate constellations, mind- she’d known even then, with the taste of him still on her swollen lips, that it wouldn’t be.

(She hadn’t wanted it to be.)

(She isn’t sure that anything had changed.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I'm sorry that this took a couple of days longer than I was hoping- my only excuses are that Christmas is manic and I got a bit carried away..  
> either way, this is a bit longer (oops) than I'd originally planned, but I'm lumping it all on anyway so I hope that makes up for it!
> 
> i'm sorry if there are zillions of mistakes, and i'm sorry if this is just one big mistake, but i hope you like it!
> 
> (and thank you so much for the kudos and comments- you don't know how much they mean to me!)  
> xxxxxxxx

**clarke + now**

Bellamy is pretty much the best roommate ever (he’s making homemade soup when she walks in), which only makes it all the worse that opening their cherry red front door feels like she’s underwater.

(She thinks that she might already be drowning.)

He’s humming, stirring, and although his broad back is facing her, she can see the looping ties that mean he’s wearing the apron she bought him.

(It’s all glistening photoshopped abs and gladiator armour and she _knows_ that he loves it, even if he won’t admit it.)

(Seems to be a bit of a theme, around here.)

She steps up behind him and reaches on her tiptoes to rest her chin on his shoulder, peeking over.

(He doesn’t even flinch, and she’s glutton for punishment.)

‘Soup?’ she asks, because it’s Monday and that means their friends are descending for their weekly movie night. Clarke thinks it might have something to do Bellamy’s cooking, because everyone always shoots down her requests to rotate the location.

He _mmhmm_ s, frowning at his chicken stock. ‘Jasper’s got a cold,’ he says absentmindedly, ‘so we probably all will tomorrow. It’s that time of year and-‘ he shrugs, dislodging her and then smiling apologetically- ‘everyone loves soup.’

(She doesn’t tell him that he already makes her insides feel warm.)

(She loves Mother Hen Bellamy, just as much as she loves all the other Bellamys, really.)

She kisses his cheek, quick. ‘You’re adorable, Mum.’

He’s rolling his eyes, but his gaze is as warm as his flushed cheeks, hair twisting wildly in the steam.

‘Shut up, Princess,’ he teases, swatting her with his wooden spoon when she dances out of the way, laughing. Orange soup flicks through the air and splatters across her face, and there’s a moment full of the tense expectation of knowing _exactly_ what happens when your best friend initiates- accidentally or not- a food fight.

She smooths a dollop from her cheek onto her finger and sucks it into her mouth, making an appreciative keening sound.

‘Not bad, Blake,’ she says, but his stare is suddenly darker- _delicious_.

(She knows that they’re both actively trying not to think about their last food fight.)

(She also knows that they’re both failing.)

The hanging moment is heavy with someone else this time.

She swallows thickly. ‘I’m going to shower off this mess,’ she says, and wills him not to make a comment.

(He doesn’t, but she reads it in his smirk anyway.)

 

 

**clarke + then**

 

For the last four hours of her life Clarke had been twenty-one, and, so far, it’d been pretty good.

The force that was Jasper-and-Monty had taken it upon themselves to salute the milestone with the bottoms of a few too many shot glasses, and she had only stumbled home at four o’something in the morning because she was _hungry_.

Bellamy knew from experience that a drunk, hungry Clarke was a force to be reckoned with, but a tipsy Bellamy hit by the sudden realisation that Clarke didn’t have a cake was a whole different kettle of fish.

Sober Bellamy was a good cook, a great one. Drunk Bellamy tended to wear the majority of his ingredients.

Clarke was sat cross-legged on the floor in her tight blue dress, heels standing a lopsided sentry by the door, giggling and sticking her pointer finger into the sugar when Bellamy wasn’t watching.

He was muttering to himself, tongue occasionally peeking out like a young child while he frowned at the recipe he’d pulled up on his phone.

‘Why is the writing so small?’ he’d whined and Clarke had laughed.

‘Give it up, Grandad,’ she teased. ‘I’ll take you to get some reading glasses this week. It’ll be cute.’

‘I’m not cute,’ he grumbled. ‘I’m manly.’

‘You’re sweet,’ she insisted.

When he frowned, cocoa powder shivered from his eyebrows. ‘I’m _sexy_.’

‘Bell,’ she widened her eyes mock seriously. ‘You’re a powderpuff girl right now.’

She snorted at her own joke, and Bellamy groaned. ‘ _Powder_ puff, Bell! Do you get it?’

‘Funny, Princess,’ he mocked, but she could see his lips twitching affectionately, because he knew that Drunk Clarke had a big thing for puns, and twelve year old Clarke had had a big thing for Cartoon Network. ‘But I’m not the one with a sugar encrusted _face_.’

(She thought encrusted was a little harsh.)

‘Not for long,’ she taunted, and wasted no time in flinging a sticky handful of sugar right at him.

(He _glittered_ with it.)

He blinked, long and slow, and her stomach fluttered. ‘Oh, Clarke,’ he taunted, his voice low and his hands working on the counter out of her eyesight. ‘I’ve got so much more ammo than you.’

She was trying to escape- with her sugar- screaming, when the flour hit the side of her face like an exploding snowball, and she coughed through the cloud around her head, fumbling for another load.

(Who knew snowball fights in June were so much fun?)

The kitchen was a blizzard, and Bellamy was laughing and she was slipping on the egg he’d dropped before, and she would never be sure if he collided with her or her with him.

Either way, their fall was a spectacle of tangled of limbs and airborne pre-cake.

The room was hazy, but Clarke could see _very_ clearly the crystals in Bellamy’s eyelashes, the flour snowdusting the curls in both of their eyes.

(She was, to be fair, lying on top of him.)

(It was not the worst place she’d ever landed.)

‘No fair,’ Bellamy scowled, but it was more of a pout, languidly rubbing a strand of her white-gold-brown hair. ‘You fight dirty.’

‘I never promised otherwise,’ she replied and- because, why not?- she leant infinitesimally closer and licked a clean line from his chin to his cheekbones.

(She wasn’t sure which one of them moaned.)

‘You taste good,’ she whispered, and Bellamy’s _fuck_ really ruined the whole angel thing he had going on.

‘Stop licking me,’ he growled, and her smirk was all the years of both of them in one expression.

‘Are you _sure_ that’s what you want?’ she asked deliberately, and leisurely licked her lips because she couldn’t yet lick his.

(It was, in fact, _not_ what he wanted.)

(He did not mind being wrong.)

 

 

**bellamy + now**

 

He might be the weirdest person on the planet (and he’s such Clarke would vouch for that), but Bellamy _loves_ Mondays.

Clarke might tease him for it, but he loves testing his new recipes on his friends (both for their sake and his), he loves the popcorn-flavoured vodka that Jasper somehow magically produces each week, and he loves the way they entwine into furniture of their own.

Most of all, he loves how, sat in the darkness surrounded by their friends, Clarke lights up.

It’s a Disney film this week- _Big Hero 6_ , Bellamy thinks- because it’s Monty’s turn and he always picks cartoons to avoid any arguments.

Raven’s wrapped up in Wick in one of the armchairs and Monty and Jasper are top-and-tailing on the sofa, Murphy buried under a sea of legs in the middle, pretending to look uncomfortable and frowning when he thinks people are looking.

(Bellamy’s only looking at him because, when he does, he can see Clarke’s golden hair in his peripherals.)

She’s sat perpendicular to him, her legs draped over the arms of the last chair they’re sharing, and every time she breathes, it skitters down _his_ neck and robs _him_ of oxygen, which doesn’t seem fair.

(He’s not complaining.)

Murphy’s grumbling ten minutes in, but Bellamy’s fairly sure everyone knows it’s just because he’s covering for the sheen in Monty’s eyes when Hiro’s brother dies and says nothing. Soon after, Raven’s pouring out the popcorn vodka and introducing the rules of her latest drinking game;  _Drink everytime Baymax is Drunk Jasper_ is the most effective, Bellamy quickly finds.

Clarke likes the film, and Bellamy knows because he’s playing with the ends of her fairytale hair by the time he’s two drinks in, and she’s not pushing him away but tilting her head closer.

About an hour in, she slides her hands surreptitiously underneath his jumper and they’re a shock of cold even to his constant body heat. He makes the obligatory fuss, because it seems like what a Best Friend would do, and then lets them rest there to warm, trying not to flex his abs (it’s not necessary) or react when her nails graze his stomach.

(If someone asked him, he probably could not explain the second half of the film.)

By the time Jasper switches the light on again, eyes half-lidded, Bellamy’s so suspicious of Raven and Wick’s sniggering on his nice, clean armchair that he doesn’t really protest when they make their goodbyes and saunter off, leaning in close.

Murphy’s mostly asleep on the sofa, so he leaves Clarke to loll into his warm spot on the armchair and rummages out their spare blanket.

‘We’re getting old,’ Jasper announces, sleepy but flamboyant as ever. ‘It’s only eleven and I’m ready for bed.’ He clasps his hands together and turns puppy-dog eyes on Bellamy. ‘Can we crash here?’

Clarke is no help, especially since he’s not sure if it’s her or Murphy snoring softly.

(He hopes it’s Murphy, because he’s a light sleeper and he doesn’t want Clarke keeping him awake for the rest of his life.)

(It’s at moments like this when he has to remind himself that she is not _his_ , not yet, and maybe not ever.)

He’s spent all of his life building up resistance to Octavia’s puppy-dog wiles, but he must still be a failure because when Monty joins in with the most mournful, earnest gaze he’s ever seen, promising breakfast, he can’t say no.

Plus, he knows that Miller’s away on a business trip, and Monty misses him.

(He’s the same when Clarke’s away, and _urgh_ , there it is again.)

(How can you turn your heart off?)

‘Fine,’ he sighs, and doesn’t miss the flash of Jasper’s triumphant grin. ‘You can sleep- er-‘

‘You can have my bed,’ Clarke chips in all of a sudden, voice thick with sleep. ‘I can share with Bellamy.’

Monty’s eyebrows break altitude records, and Jasper’s grin makes him hope, savagely, that what feels like a full-body flush is not visible beyond his neck.

‘Sounds good to me,’ Monty chirps, and grabs Jasper’s arm. ‘See you in the morning.’

‘Take some water to bed with you,’ he grumbles reluctantly, because he really is a parent. ‘And aspirin. We’re old’- he glares gently at Jasper- ‘and you’ll feel it in the morning.’

Jasper salutes and Monty nods but he sees the poorly disguised glee in their eyes and in the way they trip over their feet to get out of the room.

He goes to his room, flicks on the bedside lamp and turns back the covers. He is abruptly violently glad that he changed his sheets earlier, because he’ll be able to keep the smell of Clarke on them for as long as possible.

(God, she’s making him into a freak and he doesn’t even mind.)

She moans a little when he picks her up- grunting as if he doesn’t love being able to do this for her, just this once- and rolls her face into his neck.

(Her lips fit perfectly into the groove of his collarbone, and he nearly trips headlong.)

(He’s fairly sure her lips fit every part of his body perfectly, just like every other part of her.)

He lays her on the side of his bed furthest from the door and she snuggles into his pillow, smiling so that he has to leave the room to splash cold water on his face and remind himself that _this is only hurting them both_ and he _needs to be better_.

(He’s not sure how much good it’s doing anymore.)

He undresses and gets into bed as quietly as he can so as not to disturb her but she stirs and curls into him as soon as he’s settled anyway and, just like that, he’s wide awake.

‘You know how Christmas has that smell that no one can really pin down?’ she whispers thoughtfully, and he bites back his laugh so he doesn’t dislodge her head from his chest.

‘Pretty sure Christmas has a fairly definable smell, Princess,’ he corrects affectionately, and she lifts her head to give him her _Princess_ look, the distinctly Clarke paradox of haughty fondness.

She does not break eye contact when she says: ‘That’s what you smell like.’

He ignores the way his pulse throbs. ‘Christmas?’

‘Nooo,’ she draws out the sound, and pulls herself up, half on top of him, to stick her nose in the crook behind his ear. Inhaling is suddenly difficult, and Bellamy stares at his ceiling. ‘Like that _thing_ that always makes you feel warm and good and excited inside, even if you don’t know exactly what it is.’

To cover the cracking sound of his ribs with his heart swelling so sickeningly: ‘You could just check my shower gel.’

She smacks his chest. ‘Don’t make fun of me.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ he swears, ‘I love Drunk Clarke.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ she murmurs and for a moment he thinks he can hear the echo of his own heartbreak in her voice.

But they’ve both been drinking, even if only a little, and that means he doesn’t get emotional Clarke but the only one he can have this way, even if it might be killing them both.

She must be thinking the same thing because her leg slots itself on the other side of his hips so she’s straddling him and her lips are rewriting his pulse below his skin, conducting an orchestra from his bloodstream with the brush of her mouth alone.

It’s softer, slower, heavier, than what they have been, and more them than ever before.

(He hates it, but only because he knows that hate is probably the only thing that he definitively _isn’t_ feeling.)

_I know what’s next_ , Bellamy thinks, _and I’ve never wanted anything so much_.

_We’re destroying each other_ , he thinks, _and I will never be able to stop_.

Those awful, _awful_ nails from earlier are back, and Bellamy gulps into where she’s biting his Adam’s apple because they’re scraping at his sanity, slowly edging below the waistband of his pyjama bottoms.

‘Bellamy,’ she whispers, and he’s glad her voice is soft because any louder and it and he would crack in two (and he thinks they both know it). ‘I’m not that drunk.’

All he can think is: _I never have been_.

 

 

 

**clarke + now**

 

She might not have seen him properly in a few days (she thinks they’re both avoiding each other and it’s what she needs and what she can’t _stand_ ) but her body still feels like it doesn’t quite fully belong to her when she dresses it carefully in her mother’s accessories.

Bellamy’d normally be at her side when it came to Abby’s events, rubbing comforting circles into the skin of her elbow and cracking jokes into her ear about the dry people her mother swam with.

Tonight, she can hear him making a sandwich in the kitchen, and she dresses alone.

Her dress is a sleek expanse of midnight silk, and she feels the pretty kind of expensive in it, exactly as her mother would want.

(She thinks of Bellamy’s dark blue bed sheets, and her name mouthed into her skin, the way his eyes never left hers.)

He drops something with a clatter next door, and her eyes shutter.

It is _time to get it together_.

(And- Raven was right- it is long overdue.)

But it doesn’t matter how much steel she pours into her spine, her stilettos still shake minutely when she leaves the comfort of her room, sparkling clutch held close.

Either his sandwich is a bust, or he swallows her tongue when he sees her.

(She’s not sure which she’s hoping for, which they both deserve.)

‘Clarke,’ he says, and his voice is gravelly in a way no sandwich could cause. ‘You look spectacular.’

‘Thanks,’ she says, almost apologetic, ‘my mother.’

He frowns, his eyes inscrutable even to her. ‘This kind of beautiful is not just down to Abby Griffin, Clarke,’ he asserts firmly, and she can’t help but watch his eyes paint unmistakable lust over the blush reddening her neck, her chest.

‘I’d better go,’ she says finally, because she’s not been drinking and neither has he, and this is the closest they’re ever got to breaking that unspoken rule.

One side of his mouth tilts up, almost sarcastic. ‘I’ve never seen you so eager for one of these things.’

She shrugs, and it’s as awkward as this new _space_ between them.

(‘I’ll tell her you said hi’ does nothing to bridge the distance.)

 

**bellamy + then**

 

It’s funny, really.

He’d always known she was beautiful- in this kind of abstract way that he could filter to the back of his mind- ever since he looked down at her crouched at his injured baby sister’s side in the sunshine and knew- somehow- that she would always be following him around, patching him up too.

If he’s being honest, he started to notice _notice_ it when he hit puberty, and the other girls were suddenly interesting, but not the ceaseless _fascinating_ he’s already used to.

When she walked down the aisle towards him, Miller at his side, and he saw her in her sunshine yellow dress, all the doors and boxes and hiding places at the back of his mind burst open, and he _felt_ the way she smiled at him, all light, in his chest.

(He thought of Octavia’s birthday a few years ago, about a letter he wrote when he was twelve, and about _knowing_.)

And still, the only thing he could do was cross his eyes, sticking his tongue out jokingly and winking at her, because he knew that with seriousness came darkness, and he didn’t want her to dim anymore, to suffer anymore because of _him_.

She made faces at him through her bouquet during the ceremony, leading the cheers with him when they followed a beaming Monty and Miller back down the aisle.

(He would _not_ let himself imagine a different time, a different aisle.)

It was easy to lose himself in the Reception, because Octavia was all smiles and introducing the bulkiest, scariest looking guy he’s ever seen, and he was not only I’m-her-big-brother scared for her but I’m-her-maybe-now-redundant-big-brother scared for him and a dose of Clarke is the only thing he can stand, and exactly what he found when he turned around.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ she'd rolled her eyes, and taken his arm to lead him away without even waiting for him to say anything. ‘You’ll always be her big brother, and she’ll always love you. It’s _good_ that she’s got someone else to share her giant heart with.’

Her words had settled into his gut and calmed him, and he’d found his good mood hadn’t been quite as buried as he’d thought, easily resurrected by another glass of champagne and an assassination of wedding outfits with Clarke and Raven.

He loves Monty and he loves Miller enough to agree to be his Best Man, but he tuned out during their respective speeches, partly because he was watching the tattoos peeking out from Lincoln’s rolled-up sleeves and partly because he could hear _best friend_ and _love of my life_ and he always knew never to let those two things occupy the same sentence, the same _thought_.

Getting outrageously drunk on the free bar seemed the best course of action, and he and Clarke took it up with gusto. When the karaoke came on, he wasted no time in grabbing her hand and the microphones.

Whether they were good or not, they knew the words to _I Believe in a Thing Called Love_ back to front.

(He did not like the way Raven smirked at him the whole way through.)

They collapsed in a sweaty heap at the bar afterwards, and Bellamy could feel the buzz in his veins that he could never be entirely sure came from alcohol or whether it was just the thought of Clarke, closer.

(He was pretty sure.)

‘We’re rockstars, Blake,’ she’d panted, her grin wide and open and infectious. ‘We’ll go down in the history books. Wedding _legends_.’

‘Gods, even,’ he’d added, widening his eyes significantly and she’d laughed, just as he’d hoped she would.

‘Isn’t that, like, blasphemy to you or something?’ she’d asked, and he’d been so tipsily confused that he’d let her drag him back onto the dancefloor for the Macarena.

‘Do you think we’re taking unfair advantage of the open bar?’ She’d mused to him, a while later, and he’d nodded sagely.

‘We’re drinking them out of house and home,’ he’d replied and she’d held up her glass to clink against his.

He remembers the feel of her body lined up against his while they slow-danced, because even the DJ was slowing down.

He remembers the way her eyes had slid all over his face, the way her hands had tugged his bow tie loose and looped it round her own neck.

He remembers how she raised her eyebrows at him, expectant, and how he had thought _we were always going to end up here_.

He remembers the bottle he stole for them to take upstairs, (‘for a nightcap’), and he remembers packing it into his bag the day after, because they’d never even stopped to open it and he was a confusion of whether they even had anything to celebrate about.

 

 

**clarke + now**

 

The thing that Clarke hates- and has always hated- about her mother’s extravagant parties is the photos.

Camera flashes refract in the diamond teardrops of Abby’s giant chandeliers and, everywhere she looks, all Clarke can see are the cracks in people’s over-wide smiles, the sheen to their eyes.

The place- a living room-come-ballroom- is a fire hazard of candles everywhere, there’s a fire warming the back of Clarke’s legs and crackling over the sound of the dreary businessman droning next to her and the room is still so, so, cold.

(It occurs to Clarke that there’s not so much genuine warmth hanging around.)

(She thinks that the echoing six-foot gap at her side feels especially chilly.)

She catches her mother’s eye and she smiles, warm but reserved, and Clarke sighs.

There’s music tinkling and champagne circling and even couples draped over each other and twirling on the dancefloor.

(Clarke can barely _stand_ on her heels, never mind _waltz_.)

If Bellamy were here, he’d be rapping (terribly) to the classical music and making terrible jokes and running a terrible commentary on all the laughter ringing hollow.

(He’s _terrible_ , she thinks, _and he’d still be the best person in this room_.)

(And like a whisper: _In most rooms_.)

‘Clarke!’ A voice says, shrill and simpering, and a tall blonde woman with sharp eyes leans close to kiss her lightly on each cheek.

It takes her less than ten seconds to thrust her hand into her face, the square-cut diamond on her engagement finger as blinding and ice-cold as everything else. ‘Look! We’re engaged!’

She turns to kiss the slightly balding but expensively suited man at her side, and Clarke takes the time to look the woman up and down, racking her memory for Abby’s voice in her head.

It’s Bellamy’s that comes to her. It’s not a surprise- he’s always had a better memory for that kind of thing than her, which is partly why she’d always brought him along- but it is layered with history.

(It is only _partly_ why she’d always brought him along.)

(For all she could say about Abby Griffin, she always offers a well-stocked bar.)

Still, _Douchebagette Diana_ (they’d been seventeen, with quite the repertoire and quite the grudge) doesn’t seem entirely appropriate, so she smiles, beaming and paper-thin.

‘Diana, hi,’ she chirps, and hears Bellamy’s snigger. He’s _everywhere_ , even though he’s nowhere. ‘Congratulations, to both of you!’

Even when Diana smiles, it doesn’t seem genuine, exactly. She looks like the cat that got the cream, but wants to take yours too.

It’s enough for Clarke’s smile to gloss over, for her to tune out and not feel guilty about it.

Most of her mother’s friends are the same and Diana’s fiancée looks almost as bored.

(Clarke’s fairly sure Diana looks at her ring more lovingly than she looks at him.)

It hits her, all at once and yet twelve years of slow.

She thinks about Monty and Miller’s wedding, about _I’ve married my best friend._

And then she thinks:

_There is not a ring in the world that I could_ ever _look at more lovingly than Bellamy Blake_.

And she’s had over twelve years to figure out that it probably goes both ways.

Or, at least, it _might_.

(And that’s more than she’s ever had before.)

 

 

**clarke + later**

 

She can’t say she’s always faced Drunk Bellamy and been ready for it, but she’s not sure she’s ever felt it like a clawing disappointment come alive, from her stomach through to the cavern of her heart.

He’s stretched, sloppy and lengthways, across their sofa, one long leg tossed casually over the back, watching a documentary on Ancient Rome because #1, Drunk Bellamy is even more embarrassingly into the History channel than Sober Bellamy.

There’s a liberal dusting of popcorn encircling the general area of the TV, because #2, Drunk Bellamy is the only Bellamy that lets historical inaccuracies finally overpower his love for food and his love for neatness.

An empty bottle of wine appears over the sofa back and waves in greeting when she walks in, breathless, and his ‘Princess!’ warms her, because #3, Drunk Bellamy is _affectionate_.

She loves all these things about Drunk Bellamy, even when Drunk Bellamy’s #4, when paired with Clarke, has tended eclipse them.

(Right now, though, she’d really like Sober Bellamy, for what she hopes might be their #1 Big Moment.)

He’s waving the remote at the screen, ostentatiously trying and failing to pause Nero in action. ‘Can you even believe this?! They’re just pointing fingers willy-nilly here because _apparently_ ’- his fingers appear to sketch quotation marks in the air- ‘facts mean _nothing_ these days.’

He snorts derisively, hiccups, and she smiles, privately and fondly, because she's enjoying watching his crazy curls poke excitedly over the sofa more than she has all the rest of her night put together.

She’s disappointed, because their timing it off yet again, but it’s okay, because they’re still them.

(They’re always them, and at least she has that.)

‘Did you manage to actually get any of that popcorn in your mouth?’ She teases, light, but powers on because he only hiccups again in response. ‘I brought you some nibbles back from the party, if you want them heating up?’

She turns towards the kitchen, tossing her clutch on the counter. ‘I know how you love those little steak things.’

‘Shit,’ Bellamy curses, and she freezes instinctively at the creak of the sofa and the strain in his tone.

She can see his reflection in the hall mirror, and she can feel his gaze brush heat across her bare back.

The crack in his voice, the sharp edges of it, slice her into pieces when: ‘I forgot you were wearing _that_.’

(It shouldn’t make a difference, because he’s seen her in pretty much every state there is, but it does.)

(It _does_.)

She inhales, and it’s just as jagged because it slices through whatever barrier there was between them.

She doesn’t have time to breathe again or even turn around before he’s there, and the heat spreading through her back is suddenly tangible, his chest pressed to it.

‘Clarke,’ he murmurs, and she _feels_ it against her ear almost more than she hears it. ‘Turn around.’

‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ she mutters, but the retort is as weak as her knees and Bellamy’s chuckle is as darkly appreciative as she knows his eyes are.

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ he all but growls, and then his hands are gripping the silk at her waist, twisting her round and lifting her in the air and against him so that she can meet him halfway, like they always do.

(It’s like thunder meeting lightning, two forces of nature slamming into each other.)

Her legs are wrapped around his waist, his arms are wrapped around her, and the walls of their home are holding them up.

His tongue is in her mouth, and his hands are in her hair, down her back, inside her dress.

He’s everywhere and it’s so much.

(It’s _too_ much.)

Because when Bellamy tugs her hair so his lips can kiss down her throat, the spark of pain is enough, just enough, to remind her of the stabbing ache in her heart, yearning for more but crying out desperately for the distance it needs to glue itself back together.

She opens her eyes, and it’s over.

She opens her eyes and all she can see, like a beacon spanning twelve years and all the heartbreak that she can’t actually take, is the empty wine bottle.

The empty wine bottle, chucked carelessly to one side when he’d literally _leapt_ over the sofa to get to her.

Because the bottle’s empty, so he’d pull her closer. Because she’d worn a pretty dress, so he’d pull her closer. Because he wanted her, so she’d pull him closer.

_Enough_.

Bellamy freezes, and she realises that her whisper had been a whip-crack through the room.

Her legs fall to the floor, and they’re steady, strong. She is steel, _finally_.

(Raven would be proud).

‘Enough,’ she says again, louder, and she looks Bellamy Blake in the eye and finally tells him. ‘I will _not_ do this to myself- to _us_ \- anymore.’

His eyes are large, unreadable. ‘I thought- I thought we were just doing what we wanted.’

‘We can’t always just do whatever the hell we _want_ , Bellamy,’ she snarls, eyeing her heels and stuffing her feet into her trusty paint-splattered Converse instead. She pauses at the door, looks back at him. ‘We both deserve more than whatever this is.’

‘Clarke-‘ he calls, reaching for her. ‘Wait-‘

(She has to ignore the splintering in his voice when she lets the door slam behind her.)

 

 

**clarke + a little bit- a lot- later**

 

She walks for a while, a long while. She thinks for a while, a long while.

Then she stares at the food van for a very long while.

It’s then that she realises that she’s left her clutch on the counter, vol-au-vents, money and all.

Clarke’s a strong, smart woman but she’s still not sure it’s her best idea to wander around the streets in a silky dress this late at night, even if there are other people milling around.

Besides, it’s been a few hours, Bellamy had been fairly drunk, and she’s fairly sure that he’ll be passed out in his midnight sheets.

(She really cannot handle any more Blake tonight.)

She’s also really tired because it’s past even the early hours of the morning and now it’s just the morning and Clarke knows the medical and the real Clarke consequences of not having enough sleep.

She is, at least, glad that she grabbed her Converse when she’d stormed out, since her feet are pretty much the only part of her body that aren’t hating her right now.

(She’s not entirely sure where her heart stands, to be honest.)

(She’s not even sure if it ever left the apartment.)

It turns out, actually, that it must still be in the cavity of her chest somewhere because it crawls into her throat, screaming ( _or is that her head?_ ) when she creeps quietly through their front door and hears: ‘Clarke.’

Her name sounds like it hurt his throat on its way out, and it definitely hurts her skin now.

‘Oh,’ she says softly, and she’s like a balloon deflating. ‘I thought you’d have gone to bed by now.’

‘Bed?’ Bellamy growls, and he’s stalking towards her from his shadowy position at the kitchen counter. ‘You’ve been gone for hours, Clarke, in a big city in the middle of the night!’

Clarke bristles, indignant and still- always- angry. ‘I was fine. I _am_ fine. I don’t need any help.’

‘Yeah, you made that pretty clear,’ he snorts, and it’s scathing, yes, but also shaded with hurt. ‘It seems like I’m not the only one not thinking about consequences around here.’

‘Don’t you _dare_ ,’ Clarke says, her voice so cold and so hot that Bellamy stops his pacing and stares at her. ‘Don’t you dare make fun of this.’

He laughs emotionlessly. ‘I couldn’t if I tried, Clarke. There’s nothing funny about this at all.’

She watches him silently until he lifts his impenetrable gaze to her face.

(She has always been able to read him but, now- he’s a fortress to her.)

‘I know-‘ he pauses, treading carefully- ‘now, I guess, that this- _us_ \- has been hard on you, and I just-‘ he sighs, because he’s tripping on his words no matter how careful he is- ‘you’re not the only one.’

Her pulse is throbbing, but she’s sure- she _knows_ \- that it’s with anger.

‘I swear to _God_ ,’ she states, her voice rising a little, ‘if you stand there and patronise the way I feel about you when you can only _barely_ ’- her voice is a bottle, shattering- ‘bring yourself to want me, I will throw this whole apartment at your head.’

She looks around and points imperiously at the wine glass sitting on the counter nearby.

(She ignores how her finger shakes.)

(He is not looking.)

‘Bring myself to want you?’ He repeats, voice hard and eyes narrowed. ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’

She opens her mouth and steps forward, flashing eyes _en garde_ , but he holds up his hand and she all but walks into the brick wall he shoves between them.

‘Clarke, I want you every time I even think about you,’ he says, laughing the most horrible self-deprecating laugh she’s ever heard, ‘and I think about you _a lot_. I’m just only brave and stupid enough to try when I’ve been drinking. I thought you were the same’- and then the final nail- ‘it’s the way we’ve always been.’

He shrugs, helpless, and his fortress fractures, just enough to let a small, blonde girl squeeze through.

(He is as lost as her, and as desperate to be found.)

(She thinks that this- right here, all around her and every much a part of her as he is himself- is the boy that she loves.)

She’s breathless, hope spilling out of the broken cracks of her. ‘I don’t want to be that way anymore.’

He looks at her, bottomless, for one perfect moment, and then he’s gone, the space where he’d been filling the hallway and her chest just as empty.

There’s a monster tearing at her rib cage and a knife in her throat and a low moaning sound wanting to escape, and it’s _over_ and nothing, nothing, has ever felt so awful.

(It is a very good job that it only lasts a few moments, even if it feels like a few lifetimes.)

When he comes back, she barely recognises the look on his face, until she thinks about seeing the sunshine painting over his cheekbones when he’s smiled at her across the bed with what she always thought was bashful, affectionate apology. Now that she thinks about it- at last- it looks just like the glow from his eyes when she stood across him at Monty and Miller’s wedding, unable to stop their eyes meeting or their smiles syncing.

It looks just like the look he gave her when they were twelve years old, arch enemies, and he found her kneeling in the mud and softly singing to his baby sister while she plastered her knee.

(She thinks about Monty’s definition of love and she wonders why she had to wait to hear it be told to her, when she’s seen it every day since then.)

‘Here’, he says, voice rough, and it skates over her skin when he hands her two things, a small box and an old, well-loved piece of paper.

She opens the paper first.

‘The Plan,’ she reads, and Bellamy’s childish scrawl makes her laugh. ‘By Bellamy Blake, aged twelve and three quarters.’

She wants to giggle at number three- ‘teach Octavia to tie her shoelaces properly’- and number four- ‘learn how to tie shoelaces properly’- and then she wants to cry at number seven- ‘get Abby to teach me how to make a cake in time for Octavia’s birthday’- but she can’t because her eyes can’t seem to move past number one.

_#1: Marry Clarke Griffin_.

The ring in the box is perfect, simple and elegant and exactly what she’d have chosen, even if it’s a little blurry because she really is crying now.

Bellamy shifts backwards and forwards on his feet, awkward and nervous and adorable. He shoves a hand through his riotous hair, and she is so full of wanting to touch him.

(She is so full of love that it is quite literally  _pouring_ out of her, and she cannot stop the tears.)

He points at the list she clutches in her shaky hand. ‘That was just after you brought me and Octavia to yours for Christmas for the first time, and I was so worried that it’d be horrible and we’d ruin it for all of us and you were- Clarke, you were perfect. You told us we were family too, and I just- I never wanted to not be your family ever again.’

Her heart is so big that it’s blocking her windpipe, and he takes a step closer, gesturing to the ring.

‘I bought that three years ago,’ he starts, and Clarke sputters. He grins ruefully.

‘Octavia’s birthday,’ she says, and when he smiles, she knows exactly why people still look at the sun even when they’re told not to.

‘Yeah,’ he carries on, taking another step closer. ‘I was having a complete meltdown- I guess maybe that’s a theme, here- about her growing up and I couldn’t stand to hear anyone say _anything_ to me about it, and then you found me hiding from her party on the roof outside my window, and you knew just what to say to make me calm down. Nothing anyone else would say would even make a dent, and I was effortless to you. We were effortless to each other. And we drunk that night’- she groans and he laughs slightly- ‘yeah, same old, same old. Anyway, I’d already decided it was time to be as much of a man as twelve-year-old me was and get you, so three days later, I bought this.’ His smile is sad. ‘That day, I came home, and you were out with Lexa.’

‘God,’ she groans, but she’s struggling to be really angry right now. ‘Our timing is awful.’

Bellamy chuckles, and he’s in front of her, filling her vision and it’s more than okay because he’s all she wants to see.

‘Yeah,’ he agrees, and whisper-soft, he tucks her hair behind her ear. ‘But I’m hoping to change that. Besides’- his smirk blazes- ‘it’s pretty much the only thing we _are_ bad at.’

She shoves him playfully, and her mouth is open to chastise him for being so cheesy but it’s hopeless because his is already there, and she’s back against the wall, but this time it doesn’t matter because she can reach for him and know that he’ll be the one that supports her through this, this time, every time.

(Actually, it’s anything but hopeless.)

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for any mistakes- proof-reading isn't really my strength, especially when it's two in the morning. 
> 
>  
> 
> thank you so much for reading, and all the comments and kudos are super super appreciated!  
> I'm on tumblr at here-isthedeepest secret so come say hi!  
> xoxo


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